As technologies advance rapidly, manufacturers are adding an increasingly large number of features to their products. Since customer needs vary over a wide range and constantly evolve, it is necessary for manufacturers to implement systems that can handle the customization of features for the initial configuration of and the subsequent changes in the product-feature set. For example, a manufacturer of mobile phones such as Motorola may offer mobile phones that are capable of supporting a number of features in addition to voice such as data, texting, GPS services, WiFi connectivity, web browsing, text-to speech, and so on. The direct customers of the manufacturer, who in the case of mobile phones are often service providers such as Verizon and ATT, for instance, may wish to obtain mobile phones with different combinations of these features in order to meet the varying needs of the end users.
To address this issue, manufacturers have turned to feature licensing, which provides a feature-control mechanism that allows customers to obtain a license to enable only the product features that meet their specific needs. Feature licensing brings many benefits to both manufacturers and customers. For example, feature licensing allows manufacturers to have a single build of a product that incorporates all available features and to rely on feature licensing to enable different combinations of features. In addition, customers can get the exact features for a product that meets their specific needs without having to pay for undesired features. Feature licensing also allows manufacturers and customers to manage product upgrades and downgrades through license changes, eliminating the need to deploy different product versions and reducing operational downtime.
To achieve such benefits, feature-licensing systems have been developed which allow different manufacturers, and even different organizations within the same manufacturer, to generate license files for different products and different product lines. These systems generate feature-license files which have a generic format. Such a generic feature-licensing system may be operated and supported by a third party. Users of such a system may include users associated with the manufacturers, operators of the system who support and maintain the system, and customers (e.g., service providers, consumer end users) who will be using the various features of a product for which licenses are being obtained.
Even if a new product is introduced which uses the generic feature-licensing format, particular technical and business requirements nevertheless may require variations to certain aspects of the generic feature-licensing process, which can be difficult to implement.